Evie
I exhaled, and watched as my breath turned to ice. The beauty of it always amazed me, like thousands of sparkling diamonds falling from the sky, bursting with memories of my father and those bitterly cold walks to school as we pretended to be dragons or trains. But I couldn't linger too long on those memories, they were as bitter as they were sweet, so I pushed them away, locked them deep inside me, alongside my tears.
I took another swig of vodka. I hated vodka, but it was all I could find to numb what was left of my already deadened senses.
Somewhere in the distance, beneath the thick veil of fog, a church bell began to strike twelve. My stomach lurched with anticipation. I took one last mouthful of vodka and placed the half-drunk bottle on the edge of the bridge; a glass gravestone, a marker, a reminder that I once was here, that I had once lived. I slipped off my coat and placed it next to the bottle. The skin on my arms prickled with goose bumps, but I didn't feel cold.
I scrambled clumsily onto the side of the Old Bridge, and counted the strikes of the bell. I couldn't miss my cue, not tonight. This one time I would do something right, perhaps for the first time, the only time, in my life.
It was a beautiful night to die, the spectral fog making it feel like the souls of those who had gone before were gathering around me, welcoming me into the next life. In the distance I could just make out the spiral of St. John's piercing through the fog's cold embrace. And I remembered my father, lying cold in its cemetery, beneath the frozen ground and out of reach, under a de-robed oak tree, its branches outstretched like a guardian angel.
Soon, I would be with him again.
A willow grieved on the river bank, its trunk bent double under the weight of the hoar frost that was clinging to everything like a second skin. A stray firework exploded in the distance, staining the fog with a diluted splash of red.
Strike nine.
I edged forwards, my heartbeat quickening as the taste of freedom opened up as a promise before me. Soon I would be free of life and the dark and heavy burden that I struggled to carry, like Atlas under the weight of the world. It had seeped through my skin like a morphine drip, drop by invisible drop, paralysing my heart, stripping me of feeling.
Suicide was just the end of my body being on earth; my soul, I knew, had abandoned me long ago and was already floating in the Waters of Forgetfulness on the Other Side.
Strike twelve.
A cacophony of fireworks erupted in the sky as drunken revellers screeched Auld Lang Syne.
And I let myself fall.
Into the water.
Crashing through the ice and into black.
The numbness inside me shattered with the ice, little particles of pain breaking free, and floating around me like snowflakes, beautiful but deadly when they merged together. Darkness engulfed me, the putrid, icy water pulling me down into its sanctuary and I heard the sweet voice of death calling my name.
At last, I was free.
I exhaled, and watched as my breath turned to ice. The beauty of it always amazed me, like thousands of sparkling diamonds falling from the sky, bursting with memories of my father and those bitterly cold walks to school as we pretended to be dragons or trains. But I couldn't linger too long on those memories, they were as bitter as they were sweet, so I pushed them away, locked them deep inside me, alongside my tears.
I took another swig of vodka. I hated vodka, but it was all I could find to numb what was left of my already deadened senses.
Somewhere in the distance, beneath the thick veil of fog, a church bell began to strike twelve. My stomach lurched with anticipation. I took one last mouthful of vodka and placed the half-drunk bottle on the edge of the bridge; a glass gravestone, a marker, a reminder that I once was here, that I had once lived. I slipped off my coat and placed it next to the bottle. The skin on my arms prickled with goose bumps, but I didn't feel cold.
I scrambled clumsily onto the side of the Old Bridge, and counted the strikes of the bell. I couldn't miss my cue, not tonight. This one time I would do something right, perhaps for the first time, the only time, in my life.
It was a beautiful night to die, the spectral fog making it feel like the souls of those who had gone before were gathering around me, welcoming me into the next life. In the distance I could just make out the spiral of St. John's piercing through the fog's cold embrace. And I remembered my father, lying cold in its cemetery, beneath the frozen ground and out of reach, under a de-robed oak tree, its branches outstretched like a guardian angel.
Soon, I would be with him again.
A willow grieved on the river bank, its trunk bent double under the weight of the hoar frost that was clinging to everything like a second skin. A stray firework exploded in the distance, staining the fog with a diluted splash of red.
Strike nine.
I edged forwards, my heartbeat quickening as the taste of freedom opened up as a promise before me. Soon I would be free of life and the dark and heavy burden that I struggled to carry, like Atlas under the weight of the world. It had seeped through my skin like a morphine drip, drop by invisible drop, paralysing my heart, stripping me of feeling.
Suicide was just the end of my body being on earth; my soul, I knew, had abandoned me long ago and was already floating in the Waters of Forgetfulness on the Other Side.
Strike twelve.
A cacophony of fireworks erupted in the sky as drunken revellers screeched Auld Lang Syne.
And I let myself fall.
Into the water.
Crashing through the ice and into black.
The numbness inside me shattered with the ice, little particles of pain breaking free, and floating around me like snowflakes, beautiful but deadly when they merged together. Darkness engulfed me, the putrid, icy water pulling me down into its sanctuary and I heard the sweet voice of death calling my name.
At last, I was free.